photo credit: AT&T’s LG Thrive Pre-Paid Droid

AT&T is the last of the cell phone service providers to offer a Droid Smartphone in their pre-paid lineup. Beginning April 17th, AT&T is offering the LG Thrive for $180. The Thrive is a mid-range Droid, running on the Android OS 2.2 (Froyo). It only has a 3.2 megapixel camera and 160 MB of memory, although it can be expanded to 32 GB with a MicroSD card. The customers will have to pay pretty dearly for using this phone however. Customers can choose the “Smartphone 10 cents per minute” plan or “Smartphone $2 USD per day for unlimited talk and text” plan. Their choices for data plans range from $5 for 10 MB to $25 for 500 MB. There is no contract, which is probably a good thing since customers may dump AT&T once they find out how poor the service coverage areas are.

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photo credit: Cell Tower Fits in Your Hand

Mobile data usage grows almost exponentially. With more and more Smartphone usage, Wi-Fi hotspots and mobile technology in general, how to handle growing mobile data usage is the focus of wireless companies. Wireless companies are spending billions each year to maximize capacity. As their research and development costs grow, so do our cell phones bills. Costly cell phone towers being built at alarming numbers not only push our wireless bills up, but are unsightly as well. A tiny little device the size of a Rubik’s cube is being developed by Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) that may be the answer to both cost and more cell phone towers.

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photo credit: Verizon to Pay $93.5 M

Verizon Wireless has agreed to pay $93.5 Million to the US government. According to an article written by Brad Reed, ITWorldCanada, the original complaint was filed against Verizon in 2007. MCI (starting in 1999) began overcharging the government by “submitting invoices for payment to the United States for certain surcharges … that it is prohibited from charging the United States under Federal Acquisition Regulations … and the FTS 2001 contract.” Since Verizon and MCI merged in 2006, the courts found Verizon liable for MCI’s actions.

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photo credit: Texting During Disasters

Phone call restrictions in Japan leave more people texting. After the earthquake in Japan earlier this month, cell phone providers as well as landline phone service was restricted or at best, heavily congested. Many found the only way to reassure friends and family was through texting. CNET reported that in addition to texting, people were using “social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Mixi” to stay in touch. The phone carriers were “limiting voice calls on congested networks, with NTT DoCoMo restricting up to 80 percent of voice calls, especially in Tokyo and in northeast Japan, where 30-foot tsunami waves caused extensive damage.” Even after restrictions were relaxed, coverage was spotty. For many, texting was the answer.

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photo credit: Helping Japan

The largest wireless service providers, AT&T and Verizon Wireless have announced free calling and free texting to Japan. Peace of mind is free for a limited time. In the wake of one of the worst natural disasters in history, an 8.9 magnitude earthquake and 30 feet tsunamis, the world watched in horror and worried about the people in Japan. Now with nuclear reactor melt-downs, everyone is sitting on pins and needles waiting…

AT&T was first to announce free calling and free texting to Japan. Verizon followed suit shortly thereafter. Both companies also make it easy to donate by texting to help the people in Japan. If you are calling from an AT&T phone, simply text “redcross” to 90999 to donate $10 (added to your cell phone bill) to help the relief efforts in Japan.

Verizon actually posted a list of 9 charities to text donations. Verizon customers can easily make a $10 donation by simply sending a text message and may choose from nine organizations aiding those in need in Japan, including the American Red Cross. Donating $10 is easy – simply text the specific word to the organization’s designated short code:

* ADRA Relief: text SUPPORT to 85944
* American Red Cross Relief: text REDCROSS to 90999
* Convoy of Hope: text TSUNAMI or SUNAMI to 50555
* Global Giving: text JAPAN to 50555
* International Medical Corps: text MED to 80888
* Mercy Corps: text MERCY to 25383
* Salvation Army: text JAPAN to 80888
* Save the Children Federation, Inc.: text JAPAN or TSUNAMI to 20222
* World Relief Corp. of National Association of Evangelicals: text WAVE to 50555
* World Vision, Inc.: text 4JAPAN or 4TSUNAMI to 20222

Text messages are free for customers donating to any of these organizations. Verizon Wireless always waives text-messaging fees for disaster relief, and 100 percent of each $10 donation goes to the relief organization. For Verizon Wireless customers who pay monthly bills, the $10 donations will appear in customers’ next regular monthly bill. For customers using the company’s prepaid services, the $10 donations will be taken from customers’ prepaid balance.

As with any crisis, scammers are beginning to form schemes to take advantage of people’s generosity. See my blog Avoid Donation Scams—Giving Help to Japan. My advice would be to text from the list provided above if you are a Verizon customer, or check with your cell phone service provider for their approved list.

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photo credit: Verizon iPhone vs. AT&T iPhone

Which iPhone is faster—Verizon or AT&T? According to an article by Peter Svensson, (AP Technology) posted on TechBits, “the Verizon iPhone loads Web pages just as fast as AT&T’s version of the phone, even though Verizon’s network has lower data speeds, phone testing firm, Metrico Wireless reported.” However, Metrico Wireless said that data downloads on the Verizon iPhone turned out to be half as fast as those on AT&T’s network, but unless you are downloading data, most users didn’t notice much difference in web browsing. Metrico tested the Verizon iPhone’s performance with 4,000 calls and 10,000 Web page downloads in New York, Seattle, Washington, Baltimore, Chicago and Dallas, Rich McNally, Metrico Wireless’ VP of Information Products said.

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photo credit: Motorola Xoom - Now or Later?

The Motorola Xoom became available February 24th. With its 10.1 inch screen and 1280 by 800 resolution display, it is perfect for displaying pictures and presentations. The Xoom’s Honeycomb OS runs Nvidia’s Tegra 2 platform, with a dual-core 1GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, and 32GB of on-board user memory (plus an SD card slot). What’s not to love? Why not rush out and buy it now?

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photo credit: GPS Systems Jammed

Despite warnings and concerns by the FAA and the Defense Department, LightSquared was given conditional approval. The plan is for LightSquared to install up to 40,000 terrestrial cell phone base stations across the U.S. to augment its mobile satellite communications service. The FAA is concerned with test results involving the Garmin International GPS system that was jammed by the LightSquared transmitter. Not only does this affect GPS systems in vehicles, but also in airplanes. This can’t be good.

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photo credit: Southern California Storms Take Out Phone Service

100,000 customers throughout California lost land line phone service during severe storms. The state declared emergencies in numerous California counties, including Riverside and San Bernardino. During the storms between December 17 to January 4, storms soaked through to underground cables, disrupting service. AT&T had 70,000 complaints at the peak of the storm; Verizon had 32,000. Normally these outages are fixed within 24 hours, according to the PUC’s service quality standards. During this two and a half week storm period, AT&T and Verizon were unable to fix 90% of outages within that 24 hour window. Some customers were without phone service for as much as twelve days. Many of those people did not have cell phones. Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: Verizon iPhone

Verizon is rumored to make the big iPhone announcement tomorrow. According to ZDNet and countless blogs, Verizon has scheduled an announcement tomorrow which includes Steve Jobs (Apple) as a speaker. The much anticipated Verizon iPhone is expected to be announced tomorrow, with availability as soon as the end of the month. This announcement is scheduled for 11:00 am EST on 1/11/11. Hmm… Read the rest of this entry »